Ruby squawked again. “Tall Pines! Help!”
Quinn stared at her with his mouth open. “God. She really did say it.”
A shiver passed down my spine. “I told you.”
“Here. Look. There are three cabins on the list that aren’t booked this week. And one of them is about a half hour south of Speculator.” He turned the screen toward me. “I’ve emailed all of them and asked if we could rent.”
“Any answers yet?”
He looked at his watch. “It’s only been a half hour.”
A knock at the door announced the arrival of our dinner. We let in the server, tipped him well, and allowed ourselves to pig out until we couldn’t move. I ate a huge bowl of French onion soup, including each of the crusty cheese strips that had overflowed the crockery and pooled onto the plate below. I buttered and scarfed down three pieces of fresh bread, and drank both my glass of milk and Quinn’s.
“Check it again,” I said for the twentieth time.
Quinn lifted his finger as if it weighed five hundred pounds, and tapped the mouse once. “No new mail.”
We stumbled to the bed with the laptop between us.
“Let’s keep checking, okay?”
He nodded, but his eyes were already half closed.
“Okay.”
I pushed the Dell toward the foot of the bed and cuddled closer to Quinn, watching out for his cast. “How’s your arm? Do you need a pill?”
He shook his head. “Hurts like hell. But I hate the way those pills make me feel. I’ll be okay.”
I watched his eyes flutter and close, fought the urge to join him in sleep for ten long minutes, and finally capitulated.
Chapter 34
At eight-thirty the next morning, we had our answer. Two of the three places—both far north of Lake Placid—were currently occupied by their owners. The third, a remote cabin in the southeastern section of the park in Hope, New York, was reportedly empty. The proprietors, a friendly couple from Rhode Island, said they’d had an unexpected cancellation on Friday, one day before their guests were due to arrive. It had been too late to re-book their cabin on the Sacandaga River. I wondered if someone had engineered that cancellation. I wouldn’t put anything past Tiramisu.
I’d emailed back, feigning interest in the cabin. The place was remote—all alone on seven acres—with no neighbors and exclusive river and mountain views. But they wouldn’t give us directions or instructions on how to find the cabin or the key until I’d actually rented it. It made sense, because anyone could stop in and take advantage of their property if they knew such details.
I paid the fee using PayPal, and had the details by nine o’clock.
It was a long shot, but it was all we had.
Quinn wanted to use Road-Mapper, but I fought him on it, and insisted we download the directions written by Tall Pine’s owners. We’d print them on Cromwell’s office printer on the way out of the hotel.
“We’re taking Ruby this time,” Quinn said. “She’s been left alone too much. And who knows how long we’ll be gone?”
I stopped halfway through pulling on my navy sweatshirt. “You’re right. And maybe she’ll give us some more clues. Let’s pack some bags, too. This time I want a change of clothes handy.”
We packed quickly and hurried down to the lobby. Cromwell watched us print the directions, didn’t ask questions, and told us he’d hold our room until he heard differently.
The drive took us southwest to Speculator, where my cell phone suddenly trilled and jolted me out of my seat.
“Yes?” I said, fumbling with the phone until I put it on speaker.
“Mrs. Hollister, it’s McCann.”
“Detective? I’ve got you on speaker. Quinn’s here with me. Anything new?”
“Yeah. Some lady went into the bank this morning, claimed to be you, and accessed the box.”
“Today?” I said. We’d been there two days before, and I wondered if the bank personnel had gotten the days mixed up.
“Yeah, she came in alone, forged your signature, and looked at the box for about five minutes. She stormed out of there, royally pissed, according to the teller I interviewed. They’re trying to get a photo for me from their surveillance cameras, but something happened to the system just before she entered and it’s all screwed up.”
“A woman? What did she look like?”
“The lady at the bank said she was dressed nicely, in khakis and a blue cotton blouse with a sweater tied around her neck. She wore dark glasses and had her hair pulled under a scarf. She thought the hair was red, but wasn’t sure.”
“They don’t know me very well at that bank, but I can’t believe they wouldn’t have realized that I’d just been in two days earlier.”
“Well, they have about ten tellers. Any one of them could have waited on you and the imposter.”
“How old was she?” Quinn asked. “Could it have been Ramona?”
“Hell, no. She was somewhere in her thirties, I guess. Oh, and she wasn’t very tall, not like you at all.” McCann’s voice crackled and broke up. “Where the heck are you two, anyway? You sound like you’re driving.”
Another crackle. “We’re on our way to check something out, McCann. I’ll call you if—”
The connection died. I checked my cell. No bars.
Perfect.
***
Quinn passed a tractor that chugged along at fifteen miles per hour, settled back behind the steering wheel, and flashed an admonishing smile. “You know McCann’s the only one who’ll help if we get in trouble with Tiramisu. Maybe you should call him back and tell him where we’re going.”
“The signal cut out.”
Quinn slowed the car as if to pull over.
I touched his arm. “Keep driving. Please.”
His brows knitted together. “I think we should at least let him know our plans.”
“No! My mother may be just down the road. After all these days of waiting and worrying about her, after the sleepless nights of wondering if she’s alive or dead, all this… we might find her, Quinn. And what if she’s starving, dying of thirst, or worse? He might be torturing her, for God’s sake. Or he may have abandoned her. If we wait for McCann, it could take hours.”
He focused on the road again, snaking around the wide curves with precision, keeping the Rav4 perfectly centered within the lines.
“Of course it could be a dead end, too. We might be way off. Maybe they’re at a different place called Tall Pines. I’ll bet not all of them are online.”
“True. Or maybe we’re giving Ruby too much credit.”
The bird squawked from her cage in the back seat. “Gimme cookies!”
Quinn smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “Her track record’s been pretty good so far.” Quinn slowed to pass a busy state park entrance, then smoothly accelerated back to fifty-five. “Okay. I’m with you on this. Read me the directions again, okay?”
I did as he asked, and also read out loud the narrative about the house layout and grounds.
We continued south on Route 30, passing long stretches of trees interspersed with views of the broad Sacandaga River. After going through the quaint village of Wells, we exited into the wilderness again. The river sparkled and gleamed, boasting sections of rocky white water as we flew around the curves. There were few cars, and fewer houses. Dread crept into my throat like acid reflux as we approached our destination.
We missed the turnoff on the first pass, but I caught site of our landmark, the Hope Diner, when we passed it.
“Wait! That’s it!”
Quinn performed an illegal U-turn, shocking me. Usually he waited for a driveway to appear. We re-approached the turnoff from the south and drove left onto a dirt path littered with fallen sticks and bumpy roots. I was glad we had the Rav4, but our old van would have done just fine with its high undercarriage. I gave Quinn curt directions. “Right at the wagon wheel.” He must have memorized the directions, because he’d already started to turn when I spoke. A f
ew hundred yards beyond lay the driveway for the red cabin. Quinn slowed.
“Stop here,” I whispered. “Pull into that clearing.”
He parked the Rav4 and we got out. Quinn set Ruby’s travel cage in the shade beside the car, with her water bottle and food. Spruce, pine, and balsam trees waved overhead, their fragrance filling the air. It reinvigorated me a little, and I hitched my shoulders with resolve. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Ruby squawked, making me jump out of my skin. “Black bird eye mfmff.”
“What?” I leaned down beside the cage with Quinn, but she didn’t repeat it. “Black bird what?”
“I couldn’t make the whole thing out. Something about a blackbird, I think,” Quinn whispered. “Now baby, be a good little birdie and don’t talk too loud, okay?”
We crept through the woods and soon spied the red quaint cabin with the tin roof. It faced the river and sat on a bluff about twenty-five feet above the ravine where the wide river gurgled over rocks and around several narrow strips of land and a few islands. Small whitecaps burst and bubbled over submerged ledges of smooth rocks. Gently rolling mountains lay across the stream on the far side, thick with pines and oak.
We followed a deer track through the woods. The scent of balsam filled the air again, and soft pine needles blanketed the trail, covered in occasional piles of deer droppings. I didn’t see one white tail flashing in the distance, but knew they must be close by. When we were about forty feet from the cabin, we stopped and watched, crouching down in a low clump of wild blueberry bushes. I grabbed and ate a few handfuls of the plump berries, in spite of my clenching gut.
A small back porch abutted the pine needle-covered parking lot, and on the other end of the cabin, a glassed-in porch overlooked the river, facing the mountains. Stacks of firewood lay beneath the pine trees, scattered about the area in neat piles of six-foot lengths.
We passed an old outhouse with its blue door rotting on the ground nearby. It looked like it had simply fallen from the building and been left there over the years. I hoped it hadn’t fallen when someone had been inside on one of the two seats.
We tread softly over pine needles and fallen branches. Balsam and white pine swayed overhead, dotted with a few neighboring oak trees.
I pulled Quinn behind a large pine tree and pointed. “Look! Behind the cabin on the other side. The white truck!”
“My God. We actually found them.”
I squeezed his arm. “Now what do we do?”
“We probably should have called McCann.” He looked at me with concern.
I smiled with bravado I didn’t feel. “Since we didn’t, we’re going to take the bastards by surprise. Right?”
He whispered back, but didn’t sound too sure of himself. “Right.”
I knelt on some princess pine, watching for movement behind the curtained windows. “How do we know if my mom’s in there? And what about Barski’s brother? He and Tiramisu could both be inside.”
Quinn shushed me. The front porch screen door opened, revealing the figure of Tiramisu. He lit up a small cigar and puffed on it for a long time, leaning against a thick tree trunk. He faced the river and settled his gaze on an island with a monstrous pine that loomed high above the other leaf-bearing trees. With a grunt, he threw down his cigar and ground it out with his heel.
“Down!” Quinn whispered.
We dropped onto a carpet of tiny balsam cones and fecund earth. A patch of moss lay in my view, peapod green and soft. I touched it with my fingers, trying to will my heart to stop pounding by focusing on something of the earth, something peaceful, something beautiful.
It almost worked.
The screen door slammed shut.
“Wait.” Quinn said. He faced the cabin, having a better view than me. “Okay. He’s in the main house now.”
“Should we wait until dark?” I said, hoping Quinn would say no. I knew there were black bear in the area and didn’t want to bump into one.
“If we do, he may have the advantage, because he knows the layout of the house. Besides, we don’t know what shape your mother’s in. We may need to act fast.”
I expelled a deeply held breath. What the hell were we thinking? We had no weapons, no training, and probably no chance in hell of taking the gun-toting Tiramisu by surprise. “You were right. We should have called McCann. Damn.”
“Too late now,” he said. “If we go back, they might disappear again. We’d better look for some weapons. What about in there?” He pointed to a sage green building nearby.
“That’s the ‘Kids’ Kondo,” I said. “I remember the pictures from the website. There are bunks in there for children.” In the back of the building was an attached shed. Quinn crab-crawled to the shack. He motioned for me to follow. I slinked forward on my belly, like I’d seen the soldiers do in war movies. A few sharp sticks and high roots poked my stomach and chest, but my thick sweatshirt protected me from serious harm.
The shed was filled with lengths of wood, an old cot, an aluminum ladder, old planters, a few pipes, a chainsaw, and other miscellaneous items. “This piece of pipe looks good,” he whispered, hefting it with his good arm.
In a flash, I realized what an idiot I’d been. My husband was handicapped, and I hadn’t done very well when paired off against Tiramisu in the hospital stairwell.
Could we possibly pull it off?
I grabbed a rusty hunk of heavy chain. With a few practice swings, I thought I could do some serious damage to Tiramisu’s knees or even to his windpipe, if I was lucky.
“Okay, what now?”
“Let’s watch for a few minutes. Maybe we can see what room he’s in.”
To the left, the river flowed toward us. An assortment of Adirondack chairs and a picnic table sat before a campfire area. To the right, a red shed blocked most of the view of the windows.
We saw only Tiramisu’s figure walk back and forth between the windows for the next fifteen minutes. No sign of my mother, no sign of Yale Barski. “Where are they?” I said, peering around the front corner of the Kids’ Kondo.
Quinn put a finger to his lips. “Come on. We have to get behind the shed.”
We scurried forward and flattened ourselves against the building. I thought my heart would burst from my chest.
Quinn hunkered down and risked a look around the front of the shed. He pulled back, fast. “Whoa. He’s right there. That middle window.”
I tried to recall the floor plan the owners had sent. “I think that’s the living room. The back porch should open into a bathroom and mudroom, then the kitchen, which is separated from the living room by a half wall.
“Maybe we could hear something if we get beneath those windows,” I said.
Quinn shook his head. “You stay here. I’ll go.”
My eyes widened in fear. No way was I letting him go alone. “We stick together, Quinn. And it’s my mother in there. I’m not staying behind.”
Quinn nodded and grabbed my chin. “Okay. It’s against my better judgment, but I know how stubborn you are. I love you, Marcella Hollister.”
My heart melted, in spite of its insistent pattering. I kissed his soft lips. “I love you too, baby.”
“On three,” he said. “Crawl fast and quiet.”
I nodded.
“One, two, three.”
We scuttled forward, dragging our makeshift weapons, and reached the wall without raising an alarm.
Tiramisu’s voice sounded clearly through the open window. At first I thought he was talking to someone in the room, then realized he must be on the phone. It had to be a landline, since we’d lost all hope of a cell signal when we entered the town of Hope. I listened closer.
“What’d you find?” Tiramisu asked. His voice was insistent and pushy.
A pause, then a roar. “What? Empty? Impossible!”
After a few moments of arguing, he seemed to calm down. “They’re coming here? How in hell did they find us?” He grumbled for a few minutes. “Don’t worry. I’ll be ready.”
Quinn and I exchanged worried glances. He mouthed the word, “They?”
Another pause. “Sure. You can help me get them to talk. You’re good at that, aren’t you?” His words sounded as if they accompanied a sneer. I wondered who he was talking to, and figured it had to be either Yale Barski or the woman who impersonated me at the bank.
“How far away are you?”
I gripped Quinn’s hand.
“Just passed Northville? Good. You’re close. Don’t miss the turnoff.”
Chapter 35
“We have to act now.” Quinn breathed the words close to my ear.
I nodded and he hand-signaled to the back door.
We crept along the house and climbed onto the back porch. Quinn turned the knob on the wooden door and winced when it squeaked. My eyes urged him onward.
He pulled it open, and we scuttled into the mudroom. Wooden planks lined the ceiling and floor. A rack of dried firewood stood against the wall to the left of a water heater. The kitchen door stood open, up one step, directly in front of us. I peeked into the bathroom and found no one. I shook my head to indicate there was no one inside.
Quinn straightened a little and entered the kitchen, holding his pipe high. I readied my chain. We stopped just before the bedroom door on the left. I barely breathed. We waited.
Nothing.
I looked around the room and wished it had been a different time and place. The cabin was quaint, all knotty pine boards and old-fashioned furnishings, with a big, old woodstove and a woodsy theme. I wanted to call out to my mother, and wondered if he had her in the upstairs bedroom.
Quinn moved into the first bedroom and relaxed. He moved me back with hand motions, then checked the next bedroom. We emerged back into the combination dining/living room and waited.
I pointed upstairs. Quinn nodded, and crept up the steep stairway with me close behind. We searched the three beds and the surrounding steep peaked attic. Not a sign of Tiramisu.
I chanced a whisper. “Where the hell is he?”
Quinn pulled open a door to check behind it. I held my breath. He found nothing but shadows.
Tall Pines Mysteries: A Mystery/Suspense Boxed Set Page 16
